Personal data rights key to managing big data

By Deng Xiaoci Source:Global Times Published: 2018/3/7 22:53:39

Top Chinese political advisers urged Wednesday a law to regulate collecting, using and trading personal data to secure people's legal rights in a proposal on big data management which was submitted at the ongoing two sessions.

Raising people's awareness of their rights over personal data will play a key role in improving China's ability to protect and manage big data in the new era, Chinese experts said on Tuesday.

The proposal was submitted by the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang at the first session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) this year, propelling the establishment of a reformed management system over the collection, use and sharing of big data with a focus on both protection and utilization, the news site thepaper.cn reported Wednesday.

The proposal states that China should encourage data trading, accelerate data circulation and popularize the data sharing spirit, stressing that only when big data applications become trans-industrial and highly used that they could contribute more.

It is an up-to-date and timely proposal, while somehow overlooking some dire needs in Chinese society when it comes to the use and protection of big data, said Li Yi, a senior research fellow at the Internet Research Center under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

China's online population reached 772 million in January, with 753 million Chinese now using mobile phones to go online, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Li said that it should raise private rights awareness among the Chinese people, as the majority do not realize they are actually the big data assets suppliers and creators.

There is also an asymmetrical relationship between the general users and big internet firms in China, and the latter enjoys a monopoly in dealing and making money using the users' data, explained the expert, while noting that both the country and the people should discuss how to benefit people in big data transactions, which is the core of the genuine big data protection.

China started to build a social credit system in 2014 and an open national credit information online platform is already in place, according to Xinhua. Western media believe the system is a violation of human rights by collecting personal data.

Essentially, the system has nothing to do with human rights infringement at all, but uses big data technology to protect the public interests in a necessary and sensible way, Li noted.